


You were happy, you can still be

by pizzz_10



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Billy deserved better, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fix-It, Fluff, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Memory Loss, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, fuck the duffle bags
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-05
Updated: 2020-03-15
Packaged: 2020-06-16 03:27:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 13,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19636960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pizzz_10/pseuds/pizzz_10
Summary: After everything with the mindflayer and the monster, Billy was able to survive and was rushed to Hawkins General. Everyone was  expecting him to be fine when he wakes up, but there’s something different with him again.He has no memory of anything and his mind has reverted to the mind of a 7 or 8 year old.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I was so fucking pissed with the ending. So after crying and sitting in silence for about three minutes, I started writing this. Hope you guys enjoy.

"Billy!, Billy!" 

At the moment his named sounded muffled to him, but he can tell it was Max. His vision gets blurry as he sees two figures start running over to him. 

"Billy!" This time it was that girl's voice. Max's friend. What was her name? He couldn't remember at the moment. Everything was getting fuzzy. 

The last thing he remembers is the girl speaking to him, telling him about his mother and the beautiful beaches of California he misses. 

After that he remembers standing between the monster and the girl. It was a losing battle, but he couldn't let the thing take her. At that moment he felt himself being picked up and stabbing pain at his sides. After he screamed from the antagonizing pain. He heard a voice from the creature.

"I don't need you anymore, your purpose is done. You're useless." 

Then he was thrown across the room and he landed on a model car that was on display in the mall. 

He felt so much blood starting to drip from him, his head is spinning. Suddenly he sees two faces above him. It's Max and her friend. 

"Billy, p-please." She sobs

"Max...I'm sorry." Then everything goes black.

———  
Max and El are grabbing both of Billy's hands, trying to drag him off the car. 

"Guys! Help!" Max shouts and the rest of the party rushes to her. "We don't have time for him, the mall is burning! He's probably already-"

"Mike you fucking finish that sentence and I'll knock your teeth out! Now help us!" Not wanting to get their ass kicked or burn alive they all grab billy and try to drag him off the car, but he's too heavy.

"He's really heavy, it's no use." Will said sadly. Before Max could say anything, suddenly Billy was lifted off the ground. They look up and see that it's Steve.

"Come on!" He shouts and they all start to run towards the exit. 

Once everyone was out, Steve rushes Billy to an ambulance truck that parked along side the fire trucks. 

~~~~~~~

He doesn't know how long he was out. He doesn't know what happened anymore. 

He slowly opens his eyes and flinches a little at the light. It’s so bright. He also hears a beeping noise, he looks around until he spots the source.

It was a machine and he also had noticed some tube connected to his arm. He sits up a little bit and whimpers. It was painful to move. Billy noticed something squeezing his neck a little. He feels it and it feels hard.

Then he notice that his other arm is in a cast. He whimpers again as he stares at it. His mama had one when Neil broke her arm that one time. 

He hurt her so bad. Did Neil do this? Is he here waiting to hurt him and his mama again?

He then looks down under his sheets and see that his waist and stomach was around a thick layer off gauze. 

He looked at himself in a mirror across the room and starting to feel a frantic. What were those scratches on his face and why does his head heart so bad? Also his hair. Did he have short hair before? He can't really remember. 

He reaches on top his head to feel and in the back of it, he feels something weird. Suddenly the door opens and a man in a long white coat comes in. 

"Son please don't mess with your stitches. Now how are you feeling?" Billy looks at him a little weirdly. 

"Who are you?” He whispers, his throat was a little soar, like he might of been screaming earlier.

"My name is doctor Andrews. Now we had to cut your hair to give you your procedure, we also had to patch up the wounds on your sides. Now you can't really move around a lot or the stitches will tear. Now your right foot is his broken so we’ll have to be put it in a cast tomorrow."

Billy looked at his foot that was swollen and almost black. He tries to wingle one toe, but winces from the pain. 

Now your neck is going to be a little delicate, so the neck brace will have to stay on you for a while. Now I have some list of things you would be needing to help you when you get out."

"Help me?"

The doctor nods and flips through a packet on his clipboard. He takes out three papers. "Now your going to be needing a wheel chair since you will be immobile at first, but after some physical therapy you can move on to crunches. Now for bathrooms you will be needing safety bars in the tub, bath steps and a bench. You can look at the rest here."

He hands Billy the paper and gives him a moment to look it over. 

"Also you do have some internal injuries so your stay could be longer-" 

"Where's my mama?"

"I'm sorry what?"

"Where's my mom? I want my m-mom, s-she's supposed to be here with me." The Doctor didn't really know what to say at first. "I'm sorry I don't know."

"I don't w-want to be here you a-alone."

"You won't, someone brought you-"

At that moment Billy started to panic, he must mean his father. "No! I don't want him here, he hurts me and mama!" He started to thrash a little and the doctor quickly went over him and carefully tried to get him to keep still.

"Son listen no one will hurt you, a young man and some kids brought you here."

Billy slowly stops moving when hearing that. He doesn't know other kids, other kids don't like him. "Who are they?"

"I know one is named Steve Harrington, but the rest I don't know. Do you know anyone named Steve, Billy?"

Billy shook his head. 

"Are you sure?"

Billy nodded. "Well they brought you here and they've been waiting to see how you were doing. I'll bring them in. Maybe you'll remember some of them."

The doctor goes out of the room for a moment, leaving Billy by himself. We're these other kids friends? No they can't be, nobody ever wanted to be his friend. The only one he considered a friend was his mama.

Soon the door opens and all these kids start coming in. They all stare at him and one of them with red hair start rushing to him.

"Billy, are you okay? you scared me." She tries to hug him but Billy moves away from it. "Who are you?"

The red head seems baffled by his question. "I-It's me, Max. Your sister."

"I-I don't have a sister." He was frightened, was this girl trying to pull a mean trick on him like the rest of the kids he remembers in school? They always loved to make fun of him and do other cruel things. Then his father would yell at him for being so sensitive.

"Yes you do, Max is your sister." A girl with black hair said. "Don't you remember?"

Billy looks at all of them and suddenly something flashes through his mind.

He has a flashbacks of these kids, he's seen them before. But it was just flashes of one of them throwing something against his neck, something that was heavy and making him choke. 

Then remembers being a hit by something by one of them and then being thrown through a wall.

"No! No! Get away! Get away, leave me alone!" He was having a panic attack and the beeping to the machine was getting louder.

"Billy please calm down!" The red head says as tears were getting in her eyes. 

"Leave me alone!”

Suddenly someone else rushed over to him and put their hands on his shoulders so he can stop moving. "Whao! Hargrove, you have to relax or your injuries will get worst"

He stops for a moment to look at this person. He's meet with the softest brown eyes he's ever seen and the face of the person was beautiful. 

"Just relax okay?" He says in a soothing tone. It was so comforting. The boy was dressed a little weird. Was he a sailor? 

"Who are you?" He ask shyly.

"Steve, don't you remember?" Billy doesn't answer, but instead takes a shaky hand and touches a strand of the boy’s soft brown hair

"Steve." He says to himself. 

He doesn't know who Steve is, but he hopes Steve will like him.


	2. Chapter 2

Steve and the kids were outside Billy's room with the doctor. All of them were worried about him. Well it was mainly Max and El that were worried. Steve was also a little worried too. 

"I don't understand whats wrong with him?" Max ask trying hard not to cry again. 

"He could be suffering from memory lost and his mind could be going to the state of a child’s. I've seen this happened to a few patients."

"How long can it take for him to recover?" 

"I'm not sure, it could be a few days, weeks, months or even a year. It takes a while for them to get their memory back." 

"Well right now the only thing he remembers about us is the fight in the sauna." When Max said that, El looked down feeling guilty. She didn't want to throw Billy through a wall or choke him. But emotions were high and everything was out of control during that moment. 

"You fought him in a Sauna?" The Doctor questions. "What happened that-"

"Hey doc can do us a favor and leave us just to talk a little bit?” The man looks at all of them suspiciously, but does what Steve ask. 

Once the doctor was gone they all sigh in relief. "Guys let's not give away certain information." 

"Sorry" Max mumbles. "I should never tried to choke him." El says. "I could of just knocked him out with something."

"Come on El, don't feel bad. That asshole was about to kill us."

"We didn't even try to save him Mike, we could of done things differently-"

"Save him? He's a monster! Why should we waste our time saving someone who wouldn't even care about us? Did you forget he tried to run us over! Or what he did to Lucas and Steve?”

"Don't get me into this man." Lucas says tiredly. 

"I didn't forget Mike!" El shouts. “But we helped Will when the mindflayer had him. We could of done the same for Billy. I'm going to start doing that now."

She stomps off. "Wait where are you going!?" Mike shouts.

"Back to Billy's room, moron." Mike glares at Max when he hears her snicker. Max then turns to Steve. "Tomorrow can you drive me to the store? I wanna get Billy some stuff." Steve nods. "Sure but for now, let's get all of you home-"

"Um Steve?"

"Yes Max?"

"Can I stay at your house? I don't feel like being over there now. I'll explain later." Steve nods again. “That's fine Max. Come on guys let's go." They all start to follow Steve to get to the main elevator. 

~~~~~~~

Back in Billy's room he was still alone hoping that maybe his mama will still come or anyone that cares about him will still come. Suddenly his door opens and he sits up, hoping his mama finally came, but it was wasn’t his mama.

It was the girl with black hair and suspenders. Billy started to tense up a bit and the girl noticed. “Billy...Billy I’m not going to hurt you okay?”

“Then why are you here?” He whispers.

“To...um to...” El’s eyes land on something on a little table besides Billy’s bed. It was a menu for the hospital food. “I’m here to help you pick out ice cream.”

“I-Ice cream?”

“Yeah, they have great ice cream.” She grabs the menu and pulls up a chair by Billy’s bed and shows him the menu. She flips to the dessert section. “They have chocolate, cookie crumb, sherbet and vanilla.”

“What’s sherbet ?”

El shrugs, her guess is about as good as his. “Look we can get sprinkles.” 

“We can?...can we also get chocolate syrup?” El looks back at the menu and nods. “Then we can watch cartoons while we eat it.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, Mike showed me them and they’re really funny.”

“Who’s Mike?”

“My dumb boyfriend.” She says flatly, making Billy laugh a little. Um before we order ice cream can I see what else they have?”

“Sure.” El moves closer and shows Billy more options. “Chicken nuggets! They have chicken nuggets! And mozzarella sticks! Can I have that?”

El smiles and nods “Yeah wait here.” 

She goes out the room and walks fast to the elevator. In there she presses the button to the main floor where the cafeteria would be.

Once she’s there, she finds the place and goes in. There was a short line, so she grabs a tray and waits patiently. 

Once shes up front she grabs a small plate of chicken nuggets and cheese sticks. She noticed that that they have one slice of pizza left so she grabs that. Pizza always make anyone feel better and she gets a small bowl of mac and cheese.

Then she goes to the ice cream and other snacks. By the time she’s done, the tray is nearly full. As she’s about to go back to the elevator, a nurse steps in front of her. 

“Young lady I hope you’re going to be paying for that.”

“Pay?”

The nurse crosses her arms and nods. “Yes. Only patients get free meals, if you’re stealing I will not hesitate to throw you out.”

“This is for Billy Hargrove.”

“Who?”

“A patient you have here. You work here, know your patients.” She flatly says and starts heading back to the elevator while the nurse just stands a little shock from being talked to like that by a child. 

~~~~~~~~

When El was back in Billy’s room, her and him were watching cartoons on the hospital TV and laughing. 

They were watching some looney toons and El just loved the huge smile on Billy’s face. “Oh look, look! My favorite part!” Billy says excitedly. 

They watch and laugh as they see bugs bunny and Daffy Duck arguing witch hunting season it is and then one of them being shot. Both of them nearly die laughing.

“Can I eat some of my food?”

“Sure, of course.” 

“Um is it okay-“ before Billy can finish the door opens. It was Steve and he wasn’t in his sailor uniform anymore. Billy was a little disappointed by that. He likes sailors, they remind him of the sea. 

He wonders if Steve has a sailor boat that they can go on and sail, It be so much fun. “El, Joyce is here waiting for you. She wants to take you back to her place.” El sighs, but nods.

“Aw, five more minutes, pleaseee”

“Sorry Billy, but I’ll come back soon, okay?” Billy sadly nods. He’s sad that he has to be alone again. 

El waves him goodbye and goes out the door. Steve was about to do the same until Billy calls out to him. “Wait! Can you help me?”

Steve looks back at him and steps back in the room. “Sure, What is it?”

“I...need help me with my food.” He feels embarrassed from asking, but since his arm is broken and can’t hold things probably with the other one he needs help. Billy is expecting Steve to laugh and make fun of him, probably call him a baby since he needs help eating, but Steve just nods again and says “Sure. What do you want to eat first?”

“Um...the Mac and cheese please.” Steve nods and picks up a fork then the little bowl of pasta. He gathers some on the fork and puts it to Billy mouth. 

“Closer please.” He can’t move his neck a lot since he has the neck brace on. “Right, sorry.” 

He gently puts the fork in Billy open’s mouth and then slides the fork out. Billy chews and opens his mouth for more.

Steve feeds him again and some of the macaroni falls off the fork, making Billy blush with embarrassment. “Hey it’s okay. It’s going to happen sometime, It’s not your fault.”

Billy still felt a little embarrassed so he points to the chicken nuggets. “Can you help with that?”

Steve nods and picks one of them up. “Want me to dip it in the ketchup on your tray?”

“Yes please.”

Steve picks up a little bowl of ketchup and dunks the nugget in it before putting it near Billy’s mouth. 

When Billy bites into it, ketchup drops on his chin, making Billy look down sadly. “it’s okay, it’s not a problem.” Steve gets a napkin off the tray and wipes the ketchup off.

“But I must be a loser to you since I can’t feed myself and you’re...you’re just so cool.”

“Me?”

“Yeah.” Billy says with a smile. “You’re a sailor and you have neat hair.”

Steve couldn’t help but laugh a little. “Trust me I’m not really cool. I’m a huge dork.”

“But you’re still a sailor.” Steve rubs the back of his neck nervously and before he could say anything, Billy speaks again. “Maybe you can take me on a boat ride, I love boats. Me and mama would ride some during the summer. Please take me on a boat ride, pleaseee, we can get ice cream and look at dolphins.”

“As much as that sounds fun...I’m not a sailor. That was just some costume I had on earlier.”

Steve’s heart nearly breaks in half when he sees the look of disappoint on Billy’s face.

“Oh...um that’s okay, maybe mama will take me for a boat ride...If she finds me.”

Now Steve’s heart was almost shattering to little pieces. “I may not be a sailor, but I can still take you for a boat ride.”

Billy’s eyes light up again once he says that. “Really?”

“Yes, I promise. you are going to get a boat ride and It’ll be the best boat ride ever.” And steve means it. He’s going to get billy that boat ride.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought I never get this chapter up, I was stuck at a family reunion over The weekend, so it took a while for me to write it. Leave your thoughts


	3. Chapter 3

It was morning and Billy was waking up. 

He looks around the room, wondering if anyone came for him yet. Sadly no. He sighs and just thinks that maybe his mother will get here eventually.

He wiggles around in his bed to get a little bit more comfortable and picks up the remote that was still in his bed. He turns on the television and tries to look for some cartoons to watch.

He doesn't find any, it's mostly morning news and soap operas that are on, but he does find Star Trek. 

He loves Star Trek. Him and his mom would watch it every time it came on. His favorite character is Captain Kirk. He's a brave captain who isn't a afraid of anything and he's handsome.

Billy always had a crush on him. Whenever he watched the show he get lost in Kirk's captivating green eyes. Whenever Kirk kissed someone he would feel a little jealous.

He remembers telling his mom once that he would like to kiss Captain Kirk. As Billy starts to remember that more, a wave of sadness washes over him. 

When he said that he didn't hear Neil come into the living room with a beer and he didn't see the look of anger that was on his father's face. 

On that day a beer bottle was thrown at him, luckily it missed and hit the wall, but Neil went over to him and give him such a hard slap to the face.

"You fucking little idiot! What is wrong is you!? You want to be some kind of fag?!" He was about to get another hit, but his mother quickly intervened after being in shock for a moment. 

His mom punches him and a fight broke out between the two of them. "Don't touch him!" His mother shouted and Neil shouted back.

"He has to learn what he said and what he feels is wrong!" As the two of his parents continue to fight, Billy cowers in a corner and sobs, just hoping it be over.

Billy felt a tear hit his hand, He didn't realize he was crying. He sniffs and tries to wipe them away. He then hears his door opens.

A nurse comes in with a cart and there's a tray on it. "Breakfast and you have two visitors." The nurse says with a smile. He saw Steve come in and seeing him was making Billy cheer up almost immediately, but then someone else came in. 

It was the red hair girl who claimed to be his sister, she had a shopping bag in her hand and had a worry look on her face. 

They come inside his room while the nurse sets up his tray up for him. "There now, a nice cheese omelette and orange juice. I'll be back to give you your pain killers for the day."

With that she leaves and it's just three of them in the room. "Hi Billy, it's me, Max." The girl says to him.

"Hi." He whispers. 

"Um me and Steve ordered you a cheddar omelette. We weren't sure if you wanted anything else in it." 

"It's fine." Billy mumbles. "What's that?" He ask while pointing to the bag in her hand. 

"This is some stuff I got for you." She says with a smile and Billy perks up a bit. "Really?" 

"Yeah." Max says with a smile. She reaches into the bag and the first thing she pulls out is a book. 

Billy gasps a little when he sees it. "You got me Where the wilds things Are?" 

"Yeah, I was able to get it from your room this morning. You told me it was one of your favorite books." 

"I did?"

Max nods. "Yeah, back in California." Billy takes the book and opens it to one of the pages. He smiles from seeing some of the quirky and beautiful illustrations. “Thank you." 

"Your welcome and I got you this one." Billy grins and tries to reach for the book. It was the Giving tree, he loves that one too.

"And I got these." Max pulls out four more books to show him. There was goodnight moon, Peter rabbit, The Lorax and James and the giant peach. 

Billy looked at all of the them with awe, he felt so much joy go through him. "We also got you a little radio." Steve says and Max hands him the bag. 

He takes out the box the radio is in and shows billy a tape. "We also got you some tapes." Billy looks at the tape and gets excited. 

"Led Zeppelin!" 

"Yeah, Max said that you like them." Billy smiles a bit more. "Thank you." Max goes over to hug him. "You're welcome." 

"Can I read my books?"

"Sure, just after you eat, okay buddy?" Steve says and Billy nods. "Um can you...help me?"

"yeah, of course." Steve picks up the fork and starts cutting some of the omelette up and feeds a piece of it to Billy. 

~~~~~~~~~~

El was walking in the neighborhood Billy lived in. She didn't tell Joyce and Hopper where she was going and she didn't wait for Steve to pick her up either.

Before she got there, she stopped at the convenience store and got a little stuffed lion to give to billy and a card. She payed for it with some crumbled up dollars bills from her pocket.

The cashier looked at her funny, but checked her out. 

She was going to the hospital, but there's was something she just had to do first. 

In the void she remembers seeing a man that yelled at Billy, hit his mother and even hit him. El knew it was his father. 

In the void she wanted to yell at him, hurt him for doing that to such a happy boy. A boy that he completely broke. 

El couldn't hurt him in the void, since he was just a memory so that's why she's here. 

When she at the house she sees Neil's car park. Good, he's home. She goes near the house and looks through one of the windows. 

She sees Neil at the table reading the paper. As El looks at him she feels so much hatred for the man. 

"mouth breather." She mumbles. She continues to stare at him and concentrates really hard. 

"Come on, Come on." 

She keeps trying until something finally happened. El sees Neil’s arm suddenly move and she sees him screaming in pain. She then feels her nose bleed. 

She's a little stunned at first, but then she gets a grin on her face. 

"Yes!" She says with a fist pump. 

Her abilities back, they’re back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you guys liked it and I hope you guys liked Neil getting what he truly deserves. The fact that he got no consequences in the show pissed me off.
> 
> Leave some comments for me


	4. Chapter 4

Max and El were in Billy's room in the hospital, watching some TV with Billy. El gave him his gifts and he was very happy with his stuffed lion and card. 

While those three were spending time together, Steve is outside the building on a payphone. He was talking to Robin. “everything's okay so far?" Robin ask.

"Yeah he didn't have anymore panic attacks after the first one."

"That's good, how's Max?"

"It's going to take her some time to adjust with Billy being the way he is now, but she's a strong kid." 

"Damn right." Steve could tell she was probably smiling and he was too. "So what happens next? you dealt with this freaky monster shit, do we all just go back to normal and forget everything?"

"Um, kind of. Look I know you have a lot of questions about this shit, but I'll explain it to you soon."

"You better dingus, what are you about to do now?"

"Shopping. I need to get some things for the guest room in my house, Billy going to be staying with me." There was a little bit of a pause on the phone, Steve knows she' s about to object to the idea. "You sure you wanna do that? You told me you and him didn't get along very much."

"Yeah, but with the state he's in I'm pretty sure he won't hurt me. He can't go back to his own house and he definitely can't be on his own."

"Why can't he go to his own place? It be a good idea to show him a place he's familiar with to get his memory back."

"It would, But he just can't go there. Max told me that his father is a....well basically a piece of shit, he's a real piece of shit." 

Steve wouldn't be able to live with himself he let Billy go back to his house. That could cause another mess of problems that Steve doesn't need on his conscience. "Oh...Maybe it is a good idea."

"Yeah, hey look when I'm done getting his room ready, you wanna hang out? Get some pizza, watch some cheesy movies. It be my way of saying sorry for dragging you into weird shit."

He hears Robin laugh and he smiles. “Yeah that would be fine, meet me at my house at 8:00 and you better let me get pineapple, dingus."

"Sure." Steve says with a bigger smile. "I'll see you later." He hangs up and starts making his way back to the hospital door. 

When he got to the room, The girls and Billy were talking a bit and Steve gets their attention. "Come on you two, let's go. Visiting hour is almost over." 

The girls sigh, but cooperate and head to the door. "We'll see you later Billy." Max says and Billy smiles then waves bye to her. 

Once the girls head out, Steve goes over to the other boy. "Will you be okay?" Billy nods. "I think so."

"Okay, But next visiting hour I'll be back to check on you, okay?"

"Okay." 

Steve heads to the door again and closes it. Billy gives a sad sigh, he's alone again.

~~~~~~~~

In the next hour Steve was with Max in a Furniture and Home Decour store, picking out some stuff to put in Billy's room. 

“Get this." Max says while holding up a very good painting of the golden state bridge. 

"You think you can ask a little more politely? after all I am buying." Max gives him a bored look and just puts the painting in the cart. "You little shit heads don't have any manners." He mumbles. 

Max grabs another thing and puts it in the cart. It's a light blue rolled up rug. He looks at the tag and sees that it's in the shape of a starfish. 

Max then grabs a stuffed shark. He guesses Billy's room will be beach and California theme. He didn't really have this idea, but if it makes Billy happy then it's fine. 

Steve goes to look at the bed sheets and picks out some light blue bed covers. Max comes over and shows him a boxed reading lamp.

"Can we get it?"

Steve nods and she puts it in the cart before going to look for more things. This new room will be a fresh new start for Billy. 

He won't have to go back to Neil and deal with the stuff he delt with before, Billy needs a new start to help him recover. Going back to his old house could mean death and more trauma for the blonde. 

Max described Neil as easily angered over the most stupid things, how he would mentally and physically hurt billy with ever chance he gets.

In a way Steve could relate to Billy with this a little. His father maybe not be physically abusive, but the man would take every opportunity to make Steve feel like shit. 

At times it made him depressed and his father couldn't care that he was making his own son extremely insecure. 

Steve tightens his hands around the cart handle just from thinking about all of this. His thoughts are interrupted when he realizes that Max is saying his name repeatedly. "Steve, Steve!"

"Huh, yeah?" 

"I asked if you have a television we can put in Billy's room." 

"Oh, um yeah. There's one in the basement I can get, it's not too old." 

"Good, we should also get him some puzzles and little bit more books."

"Doesn't he have enough?" 

"If it's one thing about Billy, it's that he can never have enough books."

~~~~~~~~~~~

Billy was laying in his bed and looking at some of his books. His music from his radio was playing and he felt relaxed, he wasn't too sad about being alone anymore. It's actually a little bit better.

He loves it when Max, El and Steve are here, but he just need some time to think and try to figure out what happened.

Just as he's about to turn the page his door opens. He gets excited thinking Steve came back, but his face turns white as a sheet when he sees who it really is. 

His father. 

Neil looks at him with an icy cold glare before going over to him. Billy notices that the man has a cast on his right arm and wonders what happened. “What shit have you gotten yourself into this time boy?" 

Billy feels himself tremble a little and tries to look away. "Answer me now!"

"I-I don't know-"

"Don't fucking lie to me, you're already in deep shit and when we get home, we're having a serious talk."

Billy starts to feel absolutely terrified. Those talks always ended with Billy getting beaten senseless, they end with him crying and begging for it to stop, while Neil just continues, telling him he needs to learn a lesson. 

He starts to feel himself cry, he's so scared. He has to go home and be with this monster, his mom won't be there to protect him, no one will.

"You little pussy, stop crying or I'll-" Before Neil could finish he feels someone grab him and pull him away. 

Then he's slammed into the wall. Neil sees this man with a a few scares on his face. They look looked like healing burns. His mustache almost looked singed. 

He was wearing yellow button up Hawaiian shirt, wife beater under it and jeans. "Who the fuck are you?"

"Chief of police, asshole."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took a little long, next chapter will be up in two weeks, one if I’m not too busy with work. Don’t forget to leave some comments and kudos


	5. Chapter 5

Billy watches the man with scarred face pushes his father against the wall and give him a threatening look. 

When the man said he was chief of police, it was a little hard for Billy to believe, espically since he's wearing such a silly shirt. 

"Listen to me." Billy hears the guy say. "You have ten minutes to get the fuck out of this hospital. You're not coming back here to be anywhere near him. If you're still here when those ten minutes are up, I'm going to break your other arm and arrest you."

Neil looked at him like he was bluffing. "You can't do that." 

"I'm the chief of police, I can do whatever the fuck I want." Neil growls and pushes the chief off of him then looks at Billy. Billy can't turn his head due to the neck brace, so he just looks down, avoiding Neil's gaze.

"You're going to come home, sooner or later boy." 

Neil walks out the room and once he's gone, Hopper closes the hospital door. "You okay there Hargrove."

"I guess." Billy mumbles. Hopper goes over to his bed and sees that billy is a little cautious of him. "Don't worry I'm not here to arrest you or anything. I just came here to see if you were doing al right."

"I'm fine." Billy thinks for a moment and realizes that maybe the police know where his mother is. Billy has seen her get arrested a few times after fights with his father or drinking out in public. "Um sir?"

"Yes son?" 

"Do....Do you have a women in jail?"

"At the department?" Billy nods. "She has blonde hair and blue eyes like me, has a tattoo her on belly that says free love." Billy always remembers to mention the tattoo to police if he was looking for his mom at the police department or if she went missing after a night of drinking. 

"I'm not sure at this moment, why?" 

"She's my mom. I just want to know if she's there or not." The Chief of police raises an eyebrow at this. 

"Was your mom in town these past few days." 

"I don't know." Billy says. He feels frustrated for not knowing. Frustrated at his mom for always leaving at the worst times and not being able to find her. 

He hears the police chief sigh and he pulls up a chair to sit. "Son, I don't know if your mother would be there."

"Oh." Billy says sadly. He really is going to be stuck with Neil. "Billy I need to ask you something?"

"What?"

"What do you remember before waking up here?"

"Um not much. Everything is...fuzzy. I think remember some kids."

"Would one of those kids named El?" 

"Yes, I was scared of her at first, but she's nice. She gave me a lion." Billy picks up to show him he smiles a little. "Lions aren't my favorite animals, but I still like it." 

Hop also smiles a little. "Yeah she's very caring, um look I wanted to say Thank you." Billy looks at him feeling a little confused. What did he do to earn a thank you? Especially from a police man.

"For helping her. You may not remember, but she was in trouble and you helped her. So thank you, I really appreciate that. So if you ever need anything, let me know okay?" 

"What did I save her from?"

"For now I can't tell you the exact details, but you what you did her for her was really brave and selfless." 

Billy looks at his lion again. "Is that why she gave me this? Lions are brave." 

"I suppose so." 

At this moment billy is feeling so happy, Jane had a special way of telling him he's brave. 

~~~~~~~~~~

Robin and Steve were in Steve's living room watching night of the living dead. Two boxes of Pizza were on the coffee table. One pineapple and one pepperoni, there was also a six pack of beer belonging to his dad, but Steve knows his dad won't miss it.

He probably won't notice that some cans are missing. "Hey dingus pass me another slice."

"You think you can put a please on that?"

Robin rolls her eyes. "Please pass me another slice, dingus." Steve reaches over and gets a slice for her. "That's much better." 

"So did you do your shopping for Billy's room?"

"Yeah. I just got to get it set up before he gets out of the hospital. I'll do that tomorrow. His room is going to be Californian and beach theme, it was Max's idea."

"That's nice. So he really isn't his old self at that moment?" Steve sighs and nods. "Yes Robin for the last time I'll be fine and he won't beat the crap out of me like he did at the Byers." 

"Okay, Okay, just making sure. So this monster thing, you and the kids delt with this more then once?" 

"Yep. The first time I found out I was really confused. Jonathan and Nancy were getting ready to fight one at the Byers and I showed up at the wrong time. I almost left like a coward, but I stayed. I wouldn't live with myself if either of them died and I wasn't there to help."

"So since Nancy has done this, is this why she's good with a gun?" 

Steve laughs a little. "Yep, she's on her way to be a sharp shooter or sniper."

"Or just a classic hick girl with a gun." Robin says jokingly and Steve playfully pushes her. "Oh you're just jealous that she's more badass then you."

"As if." Robin punches his shoulder. "So before Billy was possessed by this...what is thing called again?”

"Kids call it the mindflayer."

"Right. So before Billy was possessed by this thing did he know about this stuff?"

"No. We didn't tell him, we thought we wouldn't need to since El closed the gate and we didn’t trust him to keep it a secret.”

“How is it open again if she closed it?” Steve shrugs. “I don’t know and I’m not sure if I want to.” 

he’s been trying not to think about the fact the gate is re-open, only because it could trigger certain flashbacks of him fighting those hellish creatures or make him have nightmares again about his friends being killed by them and he had a lot of those for nearly two months.

He also became a little paranoid and carried the bat in his truck a lot after that battle in the junkyard. For weeks he thought every time he be alone, he be a attacked by one of them. 

A couple of months after El closed the gate he was so stressed out that he would find himself crying or calling Dustin on the walkie-talkie and asking him for his company.

Now that he knows that the gate is open and might stay open, he might have to go through all of that fear and anxiety again, but at least with Billy in his house, he’s hoping he won’t feel completely alone like he did the last time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait you guys, leave some comments and kudos if you enjoyed it. Next chapter will be a little longer.


	6. Chapter 6

After being in the hospital for almost a week Billy was being let go on Friday.

Right now Steve was with him in his room packing his stuff in a bag and Billy was in a wheel chair waiting to go.

"Don't forget my gift basket." Billy says. 

"Don't worry I won't." Steve says as he packs the last of Billy's things into a backpack. The gift basket was from Joyce. She wasn't able to give it to Billy herself because she was busy with work and taking care of Hopper with his injuries. 

Even though Billy hasn't meet her, he can tell she was probably a nice person. "Can I have one of the cookies in there?" 

"When we get home, you just had some of the brownies from the cafeteria."

"Okay....when I get home, can you come see me...when my dad is not there?"

Steve was a little confused for a moment until he realized what billy was talking about. "Oh I forgot to tell you, you're going to be staying with me." 

Steve's heart melts a little bit when he sees the smile appearing on Billy's face and those blue eyes light up. "Really?" 

"Yep, I already have your room set up and everything." 

"What's it look like?"

"Sorry can't tell you, it's surprise." Billy pouts a little bit and Steve finds it adorable. "Come on lets go." Steve puts the backpack on and grabs the gift basket, then starts pushing Billy out the room. "Hey Steve?"

"Yeah?"

"Am I still going to get a boat ride?" Steve hesitates before nodding. He still hasn't figure out how's he going to do it though. "Yeah you will, don't worry."

"When?" 

"Soon I promise." 

"Okay. Hey Steve?"

"Yes Billy?"

"Before we go, can we get some ice cream from the cafeteria?” Steve sighs but smiles and nods. "Yeah, but just one scoop, okay.

"Okay." 

When they got down stairs, Steve heads to the cafeteria so Billy can pick out the ice he wants. He ended up getting three scoops instead of one. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When they got to Steve's place, Billy looks at the big place in awe. "Wow, it's so big and nice." He says in amazement. "Most of the places I lived weren't big or this nice. Are you rich?"

"Um a little, I guess." Steve says he gets out the car. He goes to the back and opens the trunk so he can get Billy's wheelchair. After getting it out he goes to Billy's door and opens it for him. 

"Lift your legs little." Billy does and Steve gets his hands under them. "Okay on three I'm lifting you up, okay?"

"Okay."

"1..2..3" Steve carefully lifts Billy up, he's a bit heavy but he gets him the chair safely. "You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm okay." 

"Good, lets go and I'll give the grand tour." Steve rolls him over to the front door and unlocks it. Once he gets Billy inside, Billy looks even more amazed. "Wow it's even nicer on the inside. It's like a prince lives here." 

"Trust me I'm no prince." 

"You're right, you're something much cooler. A sailor."

"I'm not a sailor remember?" 

"Oh right, then you're.....um...what do you do?"

"I now work for a DVD store." Steve says feeling a little inadequate, buts it’s an honest living. “Then I guess you’re....don't worry I'll think of something." Steve smiles a bit and starts to push Billy's chair towards the living room.

"This is living room, if you ever want to come down here to watch some TV or something on the VCR, you can, also if you get tired you can also nap here if you want." 

He then rolls Billy towards that kitchen. "Kitchen over here and dinning table is over there." He says while pointing. "It's so...clean.”

"Yeah I barely make any meals in there. I order a lot of take out." Steve says feeling a little embarrassed. Now that Billy's here he's going to have to learn how to cook better. He can't have Billy eating take out or crappy microwave meals everyday. He'll have to call Joyce later and ask for lessons. "Can I see my room now?"

"Oh, sure." Steve starts to roll the wheelchair to the staircase and paused. He looks at the staircase with worry. He did not think this through.

"God I'm such a dumbass." He whispers to himself. "What's wrong?" Billy ask.

"The stairs, your right foot is broken and I forgot. I'm going to have to carry you again. Is that okay?"

Billy nods and Steve starts to bend down to carefully get him out of the chair. Once he's carefully in Steve's arm's he slowly walks up stairs. 

He's just praying to god he doesn't drop Billy, not only would he feel guilty as hell, but Max would kill him and it’s possible that Billy might not live if he did dropped him.

Once they get upstairs, Steve walks to one of the bedroom doors. "Okay here it is, close your eyes-"

"Open it!" Billy says with excitement and Steve does. Billy gasp a little as he sees his new room, it’s beached theme mixed with a little bit of Cali. There’s was some posters of his favorite sights in California, on the bed was some turtle shaped pillows and ones shaped like starfish, also a stuffed shark was there. 

His wall had some nice ocean paintings, a rug on the floor was in the shape of star fish.

There was a desk with some books and it had a reading lap on it. The walls are painted a calm sea blue and his bed sheets are the same color.

“This is Beautiful, I love it!”

“I’m glad you do, okay let me put you down. You’re a little heavy.” He goes over to the bed and gently sets him down the soft sheets 

Billy grabs the stuffed shark and smiles. “I remember seeing a lot of sharks with my mom when we went to the aquarium together.” 

“Really?”

“Yeah then after we get some ice cream from Dairy Queen.”

“Would like to tell me about that?” Billy nods while still smiling. Steve gets the chair from the desk and puts near the bed so he can sit down. “Hey can we go to aquarium?”

“There’s one outside of town so sure.” Billy’s smiles a bit more before telling Steve about the sunny days in California where he and his mother spend time together and Steve listened to every word.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it’s so short, next chapter will be longer like the other ones I’ve posted.


	7. Chapter 7

In the morning Billy was in his wheel chair again, sitting at the table with Steve and eating breakfast. 

Steve got some take out from the town diner, he was a little too lazy to cook this morning, but now he's seriously going to make sure he gets some cooking lessons.

"I like these pancakes, they're almost as good the ones my mom makes." Billy says as he tries to cut another piece for himself, but it was little hard to do it, since the hand he uses is in a cast.

"Um, can you...help me?” Steve nods and gets up from his chair. He gets a butter knife from the kitchen and goes over to Billy.

He cuts the pancakes into triangles for him and when he sees Billy try to reach for the syrup, He gets it for him and starts to pour some on the plate.

"Not too much please, I don't like the syrup touching my eggs." Steve nods then stops pouring when there's enough Syrup on the pancakes, then goes back to his seat.

"What are we going to do today?" Billy ask. 

"I was thinking we go over to Joyce's-"

"Is that the nice lady who gave me my gift basket?" Steve nods and Billy beams. "Oh good, I made her a thank you card, can I give it to her?"

"Sure, is that why you asked for construction paper and color pencils, last night?" Billy nods as he tries to get a piece of bacon with his fork. “Yes, my momma always told me its polite to show thanks when someone does something nice for you. I also made one for El and Max." 

"That's great. Max will be at Joyce's, that's the main reason we're going. She wants to see how you're doing." 

"Will El be there too?"

Steve takes a bite of his own food and nods. “Also um...the other kids will be there too. Are you okay with that?"

Billy seems a little hesitant at first, but he nods. "O-okay that's fine. Are they all hanging out?"

"Yes, they're playing a game called D&D."

"Dungeons and Dragons?" 

"Yeah." 

Bill digs around his food a little and looks down. "I tried that game before, wasn't good at it." 

"Well that's okay, you won't have to play if you don't want to, El doesn't play that much either." Billy gives a sigh of relief, at least he'll have El to talk to while they're all playing. 

"Hey Steve?" Steve gives a hum as a response since his mouth was a little full at the moment. "C-Can you tell me the others names? I still don't know them." 

Steve nods, knowing it be a little less awkward for Billy if he at least knew they're names. 

So while they're eating breakfast, Steve goes over each kid in the Party with Billy.

~~~~~~~~~~~

When they get there in two hours, Steve carefully gets Billy's chair to the door and knocks.

Soon it opens and Billy sees this women with black, long hair in the door. She looked a little stressed out and hair was a bit messy. 

"Steve, it's good to see you." She says with a smile and then she looks at Billy. "Hello Billy how are you doing today?"

"I'm doing good, I'm still sore, but the doctor says in a few months, I'll get better enough to walk."

"And I'll try to be one of the first people to see you do it." Billy smiles and looks down at his lap, where he has three folded, colored pieces of paper.

"I made you a Thank you card. I really liked that basket you gave me." 

"Oh, that's so sweet. Thank you." She takes it with a smile and hugs it close to her chest. "I can't remember the last time I actually got a thank you card, now let’s get you boys inside.”

Steve starts to push Billy’s chair in the house. He takes him to the living room where everyone was gathering. The kids were around the coffee table with they’re game set up and Hopper was on the couch with a beer can in his hand. 

He waves at Billy and Billy waves back. Max gets up to go to Billy and so does El. The rest of the kids give billy a quiet “hey” or a nod and Billy would do the same with them. 

Billy gives El and Max they’re thank you cards and both girls hug him more. 

When the kids went back to their game, Steve goes over to Billy with the TV remote in hand. “While they play, you wanna watch something?”

“I’m not sure...isn’t Hopper watching something?” 

“It’s fine kid, Nothing is really on for me to watch anyway.” Hopper says from the couch. 

Steve starts to change the channel on TV and stops when Billy tells him to. An episode of Star Trek is on. As the theme to the TV show plays, one of the kids look up from the game.

“You like Star Trek?” 

It was the kid with the curly hair. Billy was trying to remember his name. Dustin, Steve said the one with the curly hair and a hat is named Dustin. “Um y-yeah it’s my favorite show.”

“Hm and here I thought you only liked things like MTV and music videos filled with naked women.” Dustin says jokingly and Max punches his shoulder.

“Dustin shut up.”

Meanwhile Billy had a blush of his face, he doesn’t have an interest in naked women. At least not that he can remember. 

Dustin rubs his arm and sighs. “Look what I mean is that...you don’t seem like the type to like nerdy things like Star Trek. By the way I like it this show too, but Star Wars is better.”

Billy looked offended by that. “How?”

“Well for one they have a better story line.” 

Billy was not going to take this slander. So for the next five minutes the two boys had a debt on the two series and the more Billy gave his side, a lot of people were kind of agreeing with him. 

Meanwhile Steve was relived that was everything was going fine so far. 

The kids paused they’re game to watch a The next few episodes of Star Trek, since they already got side tracked by Billy’s and Dustin’s debt. 

As they’re watching, another one of the kids decided to speak. It was the leader of the group. What was his name? Mike, his name is Mike.

“So just to be cleared, you don’t remember anything about that night?”

“What night?” 

Mike rolls his eyes “The night you woke up in the hospital.” Max was glaring at him, but Mike ignored her. “I...I don’t think so.” Billy mumbles.

“Have you felt weird for the past few days?”

“Um, my body is a little sore.”

“No, I mean like....You might feel some aggression or feel very uncomfortable when you’re near just a little heat.” Billy was very confused and before he could say anything, Lucas speaks up. “Dude, you don’t need to interrogate him okay?”

“I’m not Interrogating, I want to make sure we’re all safe.” 

Billy speaks up before anyone else could. “L-Look I’m sorry if I-I might of did something wrong to you okay, so p-please stop asking me all these weird questions. Steve can you take me to the kitchen. I want some water.”

Steve nods and gets up from the couch. “Of course.”

When Steve wheels him in the kitchen, Billy looks around and there’s something awfully familiar about it. 

In fact ever since he enter this house, there’s been something familiar about it. Steve goes over the kitchen cabinet and start to look for a glass. As Steve is looking, Billy is looking a set of familiar plates near the sink.

“Okay glasses are not here.” He hears Steve mumble and Steve goes over to another cabinet. Some of the glasses and cups were behind some plates and Steve started to move the stack out the way to get a cup.

As he’s moving them, one accidentally falls and hits the floor. “Shit.” Steve cures. 

Billy jumps a little from the sound of the plate breaking and he starts to have a certain flashback of something happening in this kitchen.

He was hurting someone and he hurt them by smashing a plate over their head. Billy started to breath heavily and shake.

“S-Steve.”

“Yeah.” Steve says and looks over to Billy. He immediately notice something was wrong. Billy looked scared out of his mind. He quickly goes over to the other teen.

“Billy are you okay?”

“I-I wanna go, now. P-Please, I can’t be here.” 

“Why not? Billy what’s wrong?” Billy starts to tremble a little and tears well up in his eyes. 

“I did something bad here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter will deal with billy’s guilt.


	8. Chapter 8

When Billy was home Steve got Billy in bed in his room and let him rest for a while.

As Billy sat in his bed he tried to get his mind off of things by reading one of his books, But it didn't stop from thinking about what he might of done in that house.

What if he killed someone? What if he's getting angry like his father? It gives him an uneasy feeling as he starts to think about it more.

As he was trying to figure things out, there was a knock at his door. "Come in." He says and the door opens. 

It's Steve and he has a plate in his hand with a slice of pizza on it. "Hey, I order us some pizza, it's pepperoni."

"Thank you." Steve nods and goes over to him. He puts the plate on Billy's lap and Billy is able to get a grip on it with his good hand. 

"Is everything okay?" Steve ask, making Billy pause from taking a bite of his food. Billy puts his pizza back on his plate and avoids eye contact with Steve a little.

"Um...you said you already know me right? Before I woke up in the hospital?"

"Yes, why?"

"Well when I was in the house, I...felt like I might hurt or k-killed someone in there. Did I hurt a-anyone?" 

Steve starts to feel a sense of dread a little bit. If he tells Billy what happened, it could crush him, but if he doesn't tell him, he'll find out later and that could be worse. He can't lie to Billy about this, he's going to have to tell him. 

"Um..yes." Steve mumbles.

Billy looked absolutely horrified, he started to panic. "O-Oh my gosh, w-what? I...I'm becoming him, I don't wanna be him Steve." Billy started to tremble a little and his plate almost fell out of his lap. 

Steve caught before it could fall and make a mess on the floor. He puts it on the nightstand and then gently grabs Billy's shoulders. "Billy, I need you to calm down okay, Listen you're starting to give yourself a panic attack, I need to calm down for me."

Billy took a deep breath and clutch on to the sheets tightly. Steve gave him a minute and when he was calm enough, Billy asked "w-who did I hurt?"

"It...it was me."

Now Billy looked absolutely destroyed and he felt ashamed of himself. How can he do that to someone so nice as Steve? He felt tears welling up his eyes and some slip down his cheeks.

"What happened that I had to hurt you and how c-could you be around me?" By starts to sob and Steve gets up to over to the desk in the room.

He picks up a box of tissues on it and pulls out a few from the box.

He goes back to Billy and starts to wipe his face. "You m-must h-hate me, I won't be mad if you do."

"Hey, no. Don't say that. I don't hate you." 

"You should! I think I-I could of killed you. I shouldn't be here, I don't deserve your help." Steve wipes away more tears as they start to slide on Billy's cheeks. 

"I'm becoming him, I hate it!"

"What?"

"I becoming my d-dad." 

Steve puts the tissues in the trash basket by the bed and gently hugs Billy. "Don't say that okay, you're not him and you'll never be. everything is going to be okay Billy."

"B-But why did I hurt you?"

"Don't worry about it, okay? After you eat, I'll get a bath for you ready and I'll put on some movies for you, I want you to relax and try not to think about it, okay?"

Billy hesitates before nodding. "Okay." He nearly mumbles. "C-Can you watch them with me?"

"Of course." 

~~~~~~~~~~~

Later on in the day, both Billy and Steve watched some movies together. It made Billy feel a little better, he was giggling and chuckling at some of the stuff happening on TV.

At some point he accidentally dropped a pizza slice on the floor and Billy was about to start apologizing numerous of times until Steve told him calmly that it was okay and he can just get another slice. 

He needed Billy relaxed or he would start have another panic attack. The bath also helped Billy a little.

He used some lavender scented bath salts his mother has and let billy soak in the tub a little bit, while Steve helped him scrubbed.

Then Steve helped him with a proper shower, by the end of his bath, Billy smelled a lot of sweeter then before.

Right now Billy was in bed asleep and Steve was down stairs on the phone with Robin

"Jesus Christ Robin, I'm not sure how I'm going to tell Billy what happened to him. When I told him what he did at the Byers, he nearly had a heart attack."

"Well we can't keep it from him forever, at some point he's going to find out."

"Yes, I know. I just need time to decide when we all need to tell him."

"We?" 

"Yes, we. Me, you and the rest of the gang."

"I rather that you do it." Steve rolls his eyes a little bit and starts to think how the rest might say the same thing, since he took Billy in. "Fine, I'll just tell him and maybe have Max tell him some things too."

"Well how is he now?"

"He's fine, he was tired so I helped him get to bed."

"What made him think of the fight anyway?" Steve tried to sound not too angry or annoyed when he answered the question. "Mike was taking to him and Whatever he said bothered Billy. So he asked for some water and I took him to the kitchen so he could get away from Mike. When he was in there, he must of had flashbacks. He must have PTSD, I can definitely see the signs."

"How do you know?"

"Because I still have it."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait and sorry for how short this chapter is, I’m having a little bit of writers block.


	9. Chapter 9

The next day Billy in the mall in Indianapolis with Steve and the party, Nancy was also there with them. 

Before they all went, Steve firmly told Mike not to be a little shit this time and not tell or ask billy about anything involving starcourt unless he asked.

Steve needed get Billy some new clothes. So he brought him along so he wouldn't be at the house alone. 

He can't keep on wearing Steve's clothes, since they're a little too small on him and Max told him she couldn't get Billy's old clothes from the house because Neil threw away Billy's stuff out of anger.

At the moment they were in a H&M store and Billy had some jeans and shirts in his lap. "Can I get this one?"

He ask while holding up a T-shirt that had the Beatles on it. "Sure." Steve says and takes it to drap it over his arm with a few other shirts.

He's about to suggest that they look for some pants, but Dustin cuts him off. "Steve, are we almost done yet? I'm getting bored and you said we stop at the comic book store they have here." He complains with a little bit in a whiny voice.

Steve rolls his eyes "just a minute Dustin, I still gotta get jeans for him."

"Well while you do that, can we please go?"

Before Steve could tell Dustin just to wait, Nancy cuts in. "I'll take them, you and Billy can continue to shop."

"We don't need to be babysat all the time you know." Dustin mumbles, both Steve and Nancy ignore him. "Yeah that's fine. We can all meet at the food court in a hour." 

Nancy nods and gets all the kids to start following her out the store. When they're gone billy searches through some shirts on the rack before asking "Is she okay?"

"What?" 

"Her, um Nancy. Is she okay?"

"Yeah, any reason why you're asking?"

Billy shrugs a little and picks at a loose thread on a shirt. "She looked a little nervous around me. Did I do something?"

Steve bit his lip, but shook his head. "No, you didn't, so don't worry about it okay?" 

A lot of them were a little nervous around Billy, not only because of his possession, but also because well, he's Billy Hargrove. 

"After shopping for clothes, can we get some tapes? I want some new movies. If that's okay." 

Steve nods as he starts to wheel Billy over to the pants section. "Yeah that would be fine, let's just get a few more things and we'll go look in the VHS store."

"Okay. Oh Look at this! Can we get it?" Billy takes a shirt out of the rack and it's a white Led Zeppelin T-shirt. 

It was a little more pricey then the others, but Steve nods and takes it to drape it over his arm with the others. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~

In the comic store, Dustin and the others were all in one section together while, Nancy was in a section full of graphic novels and going through one of them.

As they were searching, Dustin has all of them scoot closer so they can talk. "You think he's going to remember any of it at all soon?"

"What?" Lucas ask as he looks up from a Flash comic he’s reading.

"Billy. You think it'll all going to come back to him and he turns back into his douchy self?"

Max stops flipping through a wonder women comic to give him a glare. "Oh come on Max he was douchy before this."

"He was getting better though." she mumbles as she turns the page. 

"Not too better, if he nearly strangled my girlfriend to death."

"Oh give it rest already Mike, that wasn't him when that happened." Max had to stop herself from screaming, she's not getting kicked out because of Mike being a stubborn idiot. 

Before Mike could say anything else, Will speaks up. "Um you guys, T-There's something I've been m-meaning to tell you."

Mike automatically looked concerned once the other boy showed his nervousness. "What's wrong Will?"

"I...I think the mind-flayer is still here."

"WHAT!" Dustin shouts and an employee of the store shoots them a glare when they pass by.

"Um sorry." Lucas says to the guy and then glares at Dustin."Dude, seriously?"

“ Oh I'm sorry for having a sensible reaction to a Demonic, dimensional monster still being here. Will are you sure?"

"Y-Yes, I just started to get a certain feeling about a couple days ago. I think we weakened it, but it's still here."

"Fuck this is great, Just great. How can it still be alive?" 

"What If has something to do with Billy?" Lucas suggest. "I think he might of been the strongest vessel for it. If Billy barely survived, then maybe, the mind flayer barley survived too, maybe their connection was stronger then we think."

Max tried to not to look panic, but that was getting a little hard. 

"You think it'll try to find Billy again?”

"M-Maybe." Will says, "It didn't come back to me, because I wasn't strongest for it. So...they're could be a chance it could get to Billy again. And with Billy being the way he is, it could easily take over." 

"Holy shit. We gotta tell Steve." Mike says.

"And do what?" Max ask.

"Get ready, have Billy somewhere further then Hawkins or keep him in Steve's house until we kill the thing for good."

"We're not keeping my brother under house arrest Mike." 

"Okay you gotta better idea?" 

"Mike I'm this close to punching-"

"Okay, okay guys. Look why don't we just wait until something significant happens to let us know it's back? Because right now we don't know for sure. So let's not jump to conclusions or we might do something stupid." Lucas says calmly.

"Alright Fine, but if something freakishly weird happens, we tell Steve and get Billy into hiding. Agree?" Dustin says. "All those okay with that, raise your hand."

Mike immediately raises his hand and soon Will does too. Then Lucas. Max glares at her comic before hesitantly raising her hand.

"Fine." She mumbles. "Just don't do anything to scare him or accidentally kill him.”

They all nod, agreeing it be best to get Billy far away as possible if the mindflayer is back.

~~~~~~~~~~~

When Steve was paying for the stuff Billy wanted, Billy started to feel a little restless and a little bored. 

It’s nice that Steve is getting him these nice clothes, but he wanted to look in another store for a while.

"Steve?"

"Yeah, Billy?"

"Is it okay I go look in another store. I saw a one that sells things like model planes and boats. Please?" Billy ask with almost pleading look, that he knows Steve can't resist.

"Um I don't know. Can you wheel yourself there?"

"Yeah, I've been practicing doing it with my good hand. Look." Billy starts to use hand to roll the wheel on the chair and getting it to move. 

He goes to one side of the store and then turns around to go back to Steve. "See?" 

"Well...okay, just head to the food court when you’re done looking okay?" 

Billy smiles and nods as he starts to wheel himself to the exit of the store. 

Once he's out, he starts rolling straight ahead to get to the store he wanted to go to. As still wheeling himself, a lady gets in front of him and he stops. 

She was wearing a blue uniform and a name tag that said Melissa and she has a plate in her hand with some pieces food on it, tooth picks are sticking through them

"Hi, would you like to try a free sample? They're freshly baked cinnamon rolls.” Billy takes a minute to look beside him and see that he's parked near a Cinnabon. It smelled absolutely amazing. 

"Yes please." The girl smiles and gets closer to him. He grabs a tooth pick and picks up one of the cut up Pieces of cinnamon roll with the most icing then eagerly eats it. 

"You like it?"

"Yes, thank you. Um can you help me with something?”

"sure, sweetie. What is it?”

"There's this ceramic shop I saw and I wanna get to it, buts it's down stairs. Can you push me to the nearest elevator, I forgot where some of them are.” The girl smiles and nods. "Why sure."

She puts the sample plate down and gets behind Billy to push him. "I could use a 20 second break from this place anyway."

"Thank you."

"No problem, going to make something there?"

"No, I only have enough money to paint and buy. I'm going to paint a boat and give it to someone."

"Aww that's so sweet. Who are you going to give it to?"

Billy smiles brightly and says. 

"A boy name Steve."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m really sorry for the wait you guys, but I hope you guys enjoy


	10. Chapter 10

"Those colors on that boat are very nice."

Billy stops painting for a moment to look up and smile. He was smiling at a brunette women with an apron on, she was one of the employees in the pottery shop.

"Thanks." 

Right now Billy was painting an already made clay boat that he was going to give Steve when they got home. 

"Is this for anyone in mind?" The women ask and Billy nods. "It's for a friend. He was a sailor...or a pretend sailor and he's going to take me on a boat ride soon."

"Oh that's nice, do you need any more paint?"

"No, I'm almost done anyway. I just need to add the finale touch to it." Billy puts down the paint brush he has already in his hand and grabs another one on the table. He dips it in black paint and carefully turns the boat upside down so he can write on the bottom of it with the paint.

He writes 'S.S Steve Harrington.' 

The writing was a little sloppy since the hand he would normally use is in a cast, but it wasn't too bad. 

The rest of the paint on the boat is dry, so he carefully sets the boat on its side so the paint on the bottom could dry also. 

"I'm going to let that dry now, mind if I look around."

"Sure." The employee chirps and Billy starts to roll his wheel chair around a little bit to look at some other creations in that shop.

One of his favorite pieces was a miniature killer whale sculpture. He wonders if it's for sale or just for display, because he would love to have that in his room, but he only has enough money for Steve's boat, so he'll have to get it another time. 

He also like this pretty flamingo clay vase and he thinks that his mom would like it too. Flamingos are her favorite bird, she sometimes take him to the zoo just to see them. 

As he's about to move to see more of the art work, someone grabs the handles of his chair before he could move.

He looks up a little to see who it is and when he does, his blood runs cold. 

"There you are son, I've been worried sick." It was Neil and he was looking at him with fake concern and he has on a fake smile. Something he's done before so people would think he's a caring father.

"We need to get you home so you can rest." 

Billy's heart nearly skipped a beat, his heart rate was about to go up.

The women from earlier comes over once she notices Neil "Is this your son?" She asked and Neil nods. "Yes, I've been worried sick, he tends to wonder off a lot."

"He's pretty old enough to be by himself." 

"Well yes, it's just that the state that's he's in requires me to keep a close eye on him. Now if you don't mind, we have to go." 

Billy felt like he was about to cry, he didn't want to go with this monster. He wants Steve, he wants to go with Steve and give him his boat. He wants to stay with Steve forever and go on boat rides with him. 

If he goes back with Neil, he knows there's a possibility he could end up dead.

As Neil starts to push his chair, the women says "oh wait before you go, don't forget your boat."

Neil raises his brow a little. "What boat?"

“He painted a boat and he was going to buy it. I'll bring it up to the cash register and he can get it."

"Well we gotta get home now, so let's just skip that for now-"

"Since he already painted it sir, he has to buy it, store policy."

Neil gives a nod and grunts a little. "Fine, let's hurry up." The women goes back over to the table Billy was working at and picks up the boat. Neil pushes Billy to the register.

"Okay so one pre-made ceramic piece is $8.79"

Billy nods and reaches into his pocket, he takes out two crumpled up fives and hands it to her. His hand was shaking and she notices. "Are you okay?"

"I-"

"He's Fine." Neil says quickly, cutting Billy off. "Just put the money in your register and give him the boat so we can go." 

She nods and takes some sheets of brown wrapping paper and wraps billy's boat in it, then puts it in a paper shopping bag. She hands it to Billy, along with his change.

"You two have a good day."

"Yeah, thanks." Neil says briefly and starts to wheel Billy out the store. 

Once they're further away, Neil gets him to a corner and turns Billy around so he can give him such a cold and menacing look.

"Do you have any idea how much damage you caused boy? Because of you I have the chief of police on my ass, Max won't come home and now Susan left. Both of them are with those crazy Byers. You broke this family up, This is all your fault." Neil growls. 

"I'm so-sorry."

"Sorry isn't fucking good enough. When we get home we're going to talk, then you will stay your room and not leave the house unless I fucking so and that will be a long time from now. You understand?"

Billy couldn't really answer, he was too scared to at the moment. 

"I said do you fucking understand!" He knocks the bag out of Billy's hand. Billy sees some people staring at them, but they go back to what they were doing. He needs more attention on them before it's too late. 

"Y-Yes."

"Yes what Billy?"

"Y-Yes sir." He breathes out and he starts to cry a little. 

"Good." Neil says before picking up the bag and goes to a garbage can. He practically slams the thing in there. "Now let's fucking go." 

"I-I don't w-want to go." 

Neil stops for a moment to glare at him. "Excuse me."

"I-I s-said I'm not leaving."

"You fucking are-"

"N-No! You can't make me, you're h-horrible and cruel. You m-made my mom l-leave! You're mean to me for no r-reason and y-you hurt me for no reason."

People were starting to stare and its exactly what Billy wants right now. "You scare me and I-It’s you’re fault that she l-left, you hurt her and you'll hit m-me as soon as we're home. You're a monster."

"That's enough, shut the hell up!" 

"Make me!" 

Suddenly Billy feels himself move and then he’s on the ground. It takes him a minute to realize that he was pushed out of his chair and now he's on the ground.

"You fucking little shit, I will fucking put you in damn full body cast!"

He sees Neil raise his foot above him, like he's about to stomp on him. Billy closes his eyes and waits for it to be over, but then he hears Neil struggle.

He opens his eyes and sees a security guard getting Neil to the ground, he also see tons of people circling around him asking if he was okay.

Then in the crowd he hears a familiar voice. 

"Billy, Billy!"

Someone pushes through the crowd of People and it's Steve. The brunette rushes over to to him.

"Oh my god, Billy are you okay?"

Billy nods, but starts to cry. "I-I made you something, b-but I-I.."

Billy starts to sob and Steve pulls him close. "It's okay, you're safe. Let's get you home." 

“I made you s-something a-and i-it broke, because of m-me. E-everything breaks because of m-me.” He says as he sobs harder and Steve continues to try to comfort him the best way he can.

While he lets Billy cry into shirt, he glares over at Neil. He’s going to make sure he gets that asshole for what he did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed this update you guys and thank you for waiting patiently.

**Author's Note:**

> The second chapter will be up soon. I’m already writing it. Leave some comments for me.


End file.
